Trouble’s brewing in Germany. No, it’s not the euro crisis; it’s the good kind of trouble: Feminism is finding new life in networked voices online. Last week, a German blogger named Maike Hank put out a simple, defiant call to end harassment and daily sexism with her post, “This Is Not Normal.” It resonated deeply with many on Twitter, and people like Nicole von Horst started sharing their own stories: “The doctor that patted my ass, as I lay in the hospital after an attempted suicide.” That’s when Anne Wizorek, founder of the blog kleinerdrei and digital media consultant (and, disclaimer, a very good friend of mine), recognized what was happening, and suggested a hashtag to capture the stories: #aufschrei (#outcry). And then all hell broke loose when an article came out in the magazine Stern stating that Rainer Brüderle, Germany’s minister for economics and technology, had allegedly sexually harassed a journalist.

Thousands of German women took to Twitter to say that they’ve had enough. They started sharing stories of sexism, harassment and assault from their own lives: the microaggressions that add up to the systemic crisis women face every day. In the spirit of #EverydaySexism, #dearjohn, #PPSavedMe, and many more online ad-hoc campaigns, participants share their personal stories on Twitter as a mode of digital consciousness-raising. The effect? Catharsis for the sharers and removal of isolation (“that happens to you, too?!”), a treasure trove of personal-story hooks for journalists and activists, and eye-opening for people of other genders who don’t experience, and thus probably don’t think about, the sexism that gets layered onto women every day.

This phenomenon is not a quiet, easy one: Over 100,000 tweets have been shared with the #aufschrei hashtag, and thousands of stories have been collected at the AllTagsSexismus (Everyday Sexism) site that was subsequently set up. Every major German news outlet has reported on the story, and Wizorek herself has spent the past week in a flurry of media appearances, putting a much-needed young face on this surprising turn in Germany’s social politics. While the pervy minister has been a focus for the media, Wizorek and her cohorts have been able to use the #aufschrei stories to broaden the landscape and talk about systemic harassment and sexism.